


When all is said and done

by thatsformetoknow



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, I hope at least, M/M, Oookay, Reference to Past Suicide Attempts, Some issues, Suicidal Thoughts, also some uh good old self loathing, and juggle his feelings for shiro, atmospheric i will say?, but it has a happy end ok, hm, i repeat: angst with a happy ending, its angsty, its kind of a break up fic, its remarkably soft for something so angsty, lance has uh, lance sure as hell isnt perfect, lance trying to deal with his mental health, not explicitly talked abt tho, shiro assumes the worst when lance leaves, shiro isnt perfect, their relationship isnt perfect, theres a very tearful reunion, this one is, very
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 12:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20097217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsformetoknow/pseuds/thatsformetoknow
Summary: tell me a secret.i've never loved anyone the way i love you.





	When all is said and done

**Author's Note:**

> please read the tags
> 
> tw- mentions of suicidal thoughts and implied reference to past suicide attempt

Rain lashes and the sky is dark. Lance didn’t stop to grab a jacket but he can’t stop now. Bag in one hand and car keys in the other, he all but flees the house, not looking back. He can’t look back. 

He throws his bag in the trunk, it’s not nearly full enough, but he was in a rush. He gets into the front seat and starts up the engine. He doesn’t look to the door, he can’t face it being empty. He can’t face the possibility that he got exactly what he wanted, and Shiro isn’t there trying to run after him, get him to stay. 

He can’t stay. They both know he can’t stay. 

Don’t drive when you’re angry and don’t drive when you’re tired. Those are pieces of advice that Lance has received at varying points throughout his life. Though right now, he just doesn’t care. His wipers are going at speed, trying to keep the rain off of his windshield, and he doesn’t know where he’s going, and frankly he just doesn’t care. 

He just needs to get away from here, be anywhere away from here. _Away from him._

He shouldn’t be out in this, Lance knows that. The rain is hard, it’s lashing against his car, against the roads, and he can barely see out of his windshield with the speed his wipers are going. He’s cold and he’s tired, but the prospect of crashing doesn’t seem too awful right about now. 

That apartment had always been his safe place. Lance doesn’t know when the transition started, but right now he needs to be as far away as he can from it. 

Shiro had always been his safe place. Lance doesn’t know when that transition started either, the soft kisses and lingering touches to the looks across the room, the shouting and the crying and the cold. 

It’s so cold. 

Maybe it’s the fact that he didn’t bring a jacket with him, or the rain or the air con that he hasn’t turned off, but he’s so cold. 

He doesn’t know what time it is, but it must be after twelve. He’s just glad he swiped his wallet off of the counter because he’s done sleeping in his car and he doesn’t fancy it again. 

He needs to drive this off first, needs to figure out how to stop feeling like he’s drowning. 

_i can’t take this anymore_.

_i don’t want you to go_.

_you know i can’t stay_.

He drives into the night, the clock in his car is broken and he’s not switching his phone on for anything, so he just… doesn’t know. The rain doesn’t let up but by the time he’s out of gas the sky is a little less dark and Lance has no idea where he is. 

He pulls up in a motel and it doesn’t look like the best of places, but if there’s a bed and a shower and he’s nowhere near home, then that’ll be alright with him. He checks in, grabs his bag and gets his room key, breathing out the longest sigh that he didn’t know he’d been holding as he closes the door behind him. 

Tears prick behind his eyes and he lets out a shuddering breath, pulling the curtains closed because the sun has started to peak over the horizon now. He drops his bag down and peels off his clothes, flopping into the bed. It’s comfortable enough, he supposes. 

_are you hiding under the blanket because you’re blushing?_

_absolutely not. i’m cold._

_uh huh, okay. i’ll believe you this time_.

He buries himself in the sheets, inhaling the fresh scent of washing detergent. It just smells like clean linen. The sheets at home smell like lavender and Lance is grateful that these are so bland. He doesn’t think he could stomach anything reminding him of home right now. 

_your nose is cold._

_tragic_.

_it's coooooold. your feet are cold too_.

_you're just abnormally warm_.

_is that my shirt?_

_depends, do you want it back?_

_no._

_then it’s my shirt, isn’t it?_

Lance doesn’t know where things went wrong. It was just like one day they were blissfully happy, wrapped up in each other with smiles and touches that lingered, and the next you could cut the silence with a knife. It was loud, it was so loud and it was _so cold_. There was fighting, of course there was fighting, but Lance can’t remember now what it was ever about. 

There was his side of the bed and there was a cold side of the bed and hell, it wasn’t even Lance’s house. There was breakfast in bed and there were kisses and smiles, and let’s stay in bed today’s. 

There was smoking out on the balcony and there were where did we go wrong’s? There were kisses that stung with the taste of alcohol, and smoke shared between lips, there were clothes over the floor and bodies slammed against walls, teeth biting. 

The cold was biting. 

_it’s midnight, where the fuck were you?_

_out._

_tell me a secret._

_i’ve never loved anyone the way i love you._

_that’s not a secret._

_you deserve better than me_.

_one day i’m going to change your mind_.

_please don’t shut me out_.

_please, just let me help._

Maybe they’d been a train wreck from the very start, but Lance isn’t so sure. They’d been happy, and they loved each other. They love each other. But things got to a point where staying was harder than leaving, and fixing things was harder than letting them die. It killed him to walk out that door, it’s killing him now, right in his chest, but it’ll be worth it when he can breathe again. 

Like he could just keep on driving right off the edge of the world. Like he could just leave and never come back, and maybe the more miles he puts between them the less it will hurt. The more the road stretched the more he can get him out of his head. 

Maybe they were doomed, but Shiro’s still the goddamned love of his life. 

_tell me you love me_.

_i love you_.

_let’s run away together._

_where would we go?_

_anywhere? everywhere?_

_just stay with me, promise you’ll stay._

_i swear_.

Lance passes out eventually, sleeping well into the day. He needs the rest. When he wakes up the sheets are wrong. They aren’t lavender and they scratch at his skin. He’s clinging to his pillow and not a body and there is no gentle press of lips against his skin. 

The shower scalds his skin and he scrubs at it until it’s raw. He needs him off of him, if he’s going to leave him behind he needs him gone, and right now he’s clinging everywhere; in his mind, in his heart, on his body. 

He needs to leave this behind, let it go. 

He needs to let him go. 

He changes and grabs his bag and his keys, checking out at the front desk and getting in his car again. He fills up with gas and he knows that the way he’s going to be living for the next however long isn’t going to be easy on his wallet, but he needs this. 

He gets back on the road when the sun is setting, stopping off at a diner to shove something in his stomach, watching as the sun sets and the sky falls dark. Lance has always liked driving at night, it clears his head, and his head- it needs clearing. 

He stops a little way, parks up and walks to the edge of something. He can’t quite call it a cliff, it’s not that high, but he can see the towns stretching out below him. His legs dangle off of the edge and it would be so so easy to just slip. Just fall off and maybe all of this would stop, and he’d finally be free. 

_please, let me help you_.

_i don’t care if you don’t want it, i want to help you anyway_.

_i love you_.

_you’re better off without me_.

_i could never be._

Eventually, Lance manages to get himself up off of the ledge and back in his car. It’s not his time yet, at least. Tomorrow is a new day. 

He drives into the night, much the same as the one before, though with less rain and more stars, and he keeps the sun roof open, though there isn’t a whole lot of sun. 

He parks up a little way down and puts his seat back, looking up through the window at the sky. It’s beautiful. He’d always wished they had a skylight, or lived on the top floor. Their balcony was good enough, but Shiro never let him sleep out there for fear he’d catch a chill. 

Lance hasn’t switched his phone on yet, can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t want to risk there not being anything. Realistically, he knows that there will be, that Shiro always worries, and even if he’d meant it this time, that this had been final, he knows that Shiro worries and he knows that Shiro knows what he’s like. That he puts himself in harms way and doesn’t give a damn about the consequences. 

He contemplates the thought that maybe this is half about not having someone to leave behind. 

_what are you thinking about?_

_you and me and the stars._

_sounds romantic_.

_what were you thinking?_

_don’t ever scare me like that again_.

_i can’t do this without you_.

And it’s funny because they did everything right. Shiro did everything right and Lance… well, Lance isn’t sure that he can give himself the same luxury, but he didn’t fuck anything up, not majorly. 

But things still fell apart anyway. 

And maybe it is Lance’s fault, maybe he didn’t want help, didn’t want someone to love him, didn’t want someone to leave behind and all Shiro did was love and love and love until there was only shouting left. Screaming desperately into a void where no one is listening. Lance was never listening. 

Shiro stopped letting Lance go out on the balcony alone. 

_your hair._

_what about it?_

_it’s doing the thing, the cute thing._

_tell me you love me_.

_i love you_.

_tell me again_.

He pulls into another motel and goes through the same motions, except he thinks that this one uses the same washing detergents as Shiro does and he cries a little into his pillow. It’s lumpy and he can’t get comfy, and he goes out to find a twenty-four hour store that he can buy a new pack of cigarettes and a bottle of something hard. 

That puts him to sleep and the pillow doesn’t seem quite so lumpy anymore, and the sheets don’t smell quite so strong. 

He feels shitty in the morning, but he’s known since college that the easiest remedy to a hangover is to just not stop drinking. 

He drives. He doesn’t care anymore, he doesn’t know why he’s here, why he’s doing this. He’s got one hand on the wheel, one hand half out the window clutching a cigarette, but there’s no one much about. No one to hit, at least. 

He’s thought about all the ways this could go, and he thinks that he’d rather like to try and avoid taking anyone else with him, so he stops again until he’s sobered up. He parks up on a bit of grass away from the main road, laying down and looking up and he smokes until his pack is empty and he’s feeling tired. 

He wonders why he hasn’t done it yet. 

_that one’s you_.

_how can you tell?_

_it looks like you. see those stars connecting there? that’s your scar and that’s your hair_.

_you look pretty in the sunset_.

_you look pretty all of the time_.

_could you be happy here, with me?_

_i could marry you, i think_.

It had been too much. That’s why he’d left, he was drowning, suffocating, and leaving was supposed to help him be able to breathe again. 

He still can’t breathe and there’s smoke in his lungs, and his heart feels heavier than ever. Maybe it was less about having someone to leave behind and more about leaving. 

He wasn’t happy, but he’s never been happy, not really. 

He’s got nothing left to smoke now, and he feels a lot sharper at least, so he gets back into his car and keeps on driving. Maybe if he just keeps driving then the ache will stop, because he needed to do this, he knows he needed to do this. He’s been thinking about this; fantasising about this for months. 

Getting away. Leaving. Running far far away and just… disappearing. 

Wherever he settles down there’s always going to be more people to leave behind, more people to hurt and disappoint, so maybe he should just keep going. Just keep going to the edge of the country and hop on a boat somewhere, and maybe drown along the way. 

He could live with the merpeople, maybe. Or the fish, they might miss him less. 

Why doesn’t he feel better?

_i think you’re a little bit drunk_.

_and i think that you should dance with me, and kiss me, and stay with me forever_.

_i think i can do all of those things_.

_i don’t want to talk about it_.

_then we won’t. but let me hold you, please_.

_you can’t just fix me_.

He makes one more stop at a motel, and he picks up something else to drink and a fresh packet of cigarettes. He’s not allowed to smoke inside, so he doesn’t, just drinks and drinks and hopes that somewhere the pain will dull. 

It’s funny because this suddenly isn’t the pain that he’s been trying to escape. This isn’t the drowning he’s trying to run from. 

The walls aren’t the right colour. They’re close, but not quite there. The curtains don’t block out enough light and the bed is too small. The carpet scratches his feet and the bathroom door creaks. Lance doesn’t like this room, but he figures that really, there’s not much wrong with it. 

It isn’t home. 

He thought that getting away from home would make everything better, that he’d feel free and he could breathe, but he can’t. He just aches. 

He gets his phone out for the first time, switching it on and squinting at it in the darkness. It takes a few minutes to pick up a signal, but after it does the messages come flooding in. 

_please come back_

_the weather’s bad please just go in the morning if you need to go_

_it’s not safe_

_i need you to be safe_

_lance_

_lance please answer me_

_please come back_

_i’m sorry_

_i’m sorry if i ever made you feel like i was suffocating you or if i made you feel trapped_

_lance please it’s been hours i need to know you’re safe_

_please just let me know you’re safe_

_please_

_lance_

_don’t do anything stupid_

_lance i need you_

_i need you i cant do this without you please don’t do anything stupid i dont need you in my life if you dont want to be there i just need you alive_

_please just let me know you’re okay_

_i love you_

He’d stopped texting after that and Lance feels… Lance feels awful. He switches his phone promptly back off. 

He doesn’t text Shiro to let him know he’s okay. But what he does do is throw in his room key and get back in his car. 

He pushes forward. He can’t let guilt keep him back, he needs to keep going. 

And so he does, he keeps going. This motel isn’t far enough away, not yet. He stops for gas again, and pushes on. 

The roads are quiet but they aren’t empty. The sky is dark and the air is cold, rain threatening. He needs to keep going.

_it’s three in the morning_.

_so?_

_i think there’s more appropriate times for kisses_.

_i’m going to have to disagree with you there_.

_i missed you_.

_i was only gone for a day_.

_the bed was cold_.

_i think that i will never be as happy as i am right now_.

_don’t say that, i want you to be this happy every day_.

_i think that i will never love anyone as much as i love you_.

_now that one i think i can live with_.

_talk?_

_no_.

_hold?_

_please_.

_you’re the love of my life, you know_.

_i think i do, yeah_.

_i need you_.

_you don’t need me, you don’t need anyone_.

_you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to go._

_please don’t go_.

_i don’t want you to go_.

_i love you_.

There’s a loud sounding of a horn and the screech of breaks as Lance swerves his car around and onto the other side of the road. It’s reckless, and it’s stupid and he doesn’t look, but then he’s driving home. 

He doesn’t stop this time, he stops for gas, and for a coffee or three, but he doesn’t stop to sleep. 

He needs to get home. 

This was all wrong, it was about trying to chase after something that was never going to make him happy. How could he think that being away from Shiro would make him happy? Yes, Shiro’s overbearing sometimes and he worries too much, and he doesn’t like it when Lance stays out too late or let him on the balcony by himself. He’d smoked with him for a little while, but then he’d taken his cigarettes away and stopped drinking hard liquor with him. 

He’d pushed him to talk, he’d pushed and pushed and pushed until Lance wanted to scream, but he’d held his hand when he cried and kissed his tears away. 

Shiro wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t good at dealing with Lance at the best of times, but he loves Lance more than anyone’s ever loved him, more than anyone ever will. 

He loves Lance more than Lance is worth loving. 

He’s exhausted by the time he gets back into town and he’s grateful he stuck mostly to main roads so he could follow the sign posts home, because he hasn’t cared to look where he’s been. 

It’s the moment that the house gets into sight that it’s that moment- that relief- that finally being able to breathe again. He parks up his car, and it’s not straight, or even remotely in his parking space, and he barely remembers to lock the thing before he’s running inside, up flights of stairs to their apartment, fumbling with his keys in the lock. 

This is where he needs to be, this is where he can breathe. This is his home and he was an idiot to think that anything else could give him this. That he could find this anywhere but with Shiro. 

The house is dark when Lance walks in. It looks pretty much as he left it; he catches sight of his mug still on the kitchen counter. He’s not exactly sure what time it is, only that the sun set some many hours ago and it could be anywhere between eleven and three.

He stops in the living room as he gets there, breath catching in his chest. Shiro’s hunched over on the couch, and honestly, Lance can’t tell if he’s sleeping or not. 

He takes a step into the room, footsteps seeming impossibly loud and Shiro flinches at the sound. 

“Keith, I told you I’m fine.” He croaks out, voice rough and raw, like he’s been crying for days and hasn’t slept. 

Lance feels his heart break inside of his chest and everything comes crumbling down. He’s so selfish, he’s so goddamn selfish, he’s _done_ this. God, he deserved to have gotten into that crash on the way home, deserved to have slipped off of the edge of where he sat or ran himself off of the road drunk. He’s done this and for what? For what?

“Not quite.” He says softly and Shiro flinches again, hard. 

It takes him a moment, but he eventually turns around to look at Lance and Lance can’t tell what he’s feeling. There looks like a mixture of devastation and resentment in his eyes as they swim with tears, and Lance can’t blame him. 

He’s an idiot, he’s a fucking idiot and he doesn’t deserve this man. 

“Lance-” He says, and it comes out broken, it comes out _desperate_.

Lance rushes to him, next to him on the sofa, and Shiro collapses into his arms, clinging to Lance more tightly than he thinks Shiro’s ever clung to anything.

“I thought- I thought-”

“I know.” Lance says, and he holds Shiro back just as tightly. 

“I thought you were _dead_.” 

“I know.” Lance says again, and he does. He’d known from the moment he left that that’s what Shiro would think. And why wouldn’t he? What reason has he ever given him not to?

“_Lance_-”

“I’m sorry.” He says, and it’s not enough, of course it’s not enough, but it’s all he’s got. “I’m okay, I’m _sorry_.”

He is sorry. But it’s not good enough, because he wasn’t sorry quick enough. It took him three whole days to be sorry. 

It takes a very long time for Shiro to calm down, for them to get to the point of Shiro just laying in Lance’s arms and giving a soft hiccup every now and again, and honestly, if it wouldn’t do any more damage, Lance may just have gone and fallen right off of the balcony outside, instead. 

He’s never going to be able to forgive himself for this. 

Lance stands up, lifting Shiro into his arms and struggling with him to their bed. He’d definitely been able to lift him easier in the past. 

They lay down in bed and Shiro snuggles against him, hands fisted in his clothes in a way suggests he’s frightened to let go. As thought Lance may disappear.

_stay with me._

_always_.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here.” Lance murmurs, holding him close. “I’m so sorry, I’m an idiot, I’m a selfish idiot and I- god, I don’t deserve you. I’ve never deserved you and somehow you’ve still been here this whole time loving me anyway.”

Shiro nudges his nose against Lance’s jaw and blows out a shaky breath. “You- you _scared me so badly_.” He murmurs. “I thought- Lance, you _know_ what-”

“I know.” Lance says. And he does. “I know, darling, I’m sorry. I know that’s not good enough, it’s not even close, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“I can’t lose you, I thought I lost you.”

“You’ll never lose me. I promise. Never again, not on your life, not on mine.”

“What- what happened?”

“I… I felt trapped.” Lance admits. “And I drove and I drove and I drank and I smoked and I nearly crashed my car a few times, and…” He shudders out a breath. “All I could think about was how much I missed you. I thought that I needed space, but… I didn’t. I just need you, you’re the only good thing I have, you’re the only thing that keeps me going, and… I was an idiot thinking that I could give that up.”

Shiro presses against Lance tighter and Lance holds him back just as tightly. 

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs. 

“I know.” Shiro replies. 

Shiro’s never mad at him. No matter what Lance does to fuck up, and this- this is the most almighty fuck up that has ever been fucked up- but Shiro is never mad with him. 

He’s mad in the moment, and he shouts, just as Lance does, and god, have they gotten into some screaming matches. But when all is said and done, and when Lance is sorry, Shiro is never mad, and he always forgives him.

“I know that there’s nothing I can do to make it better…” Lance says softly. 

“Stay with me.” Shiro murmurs. 

“Always.” Lance replies.

“Mean it this time.”

“I do.” Lance says. And he does. “I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything. I love you, and I’m sorry, and I’m here now, and I’m here forever, for as long as you’ll have me for, I’m yours.”

Shiro nods. “I believe you.”

And maybe Shiro is too trusting and too kind and too forgiving, and maybe Lance is too quick to say things in the moment, when he feels like he means them, but doesn’t. But he does, this time. He means them. Things need to get better, and they will. They actually will, this time. 

When all is said and done, Shiro is the only constant thing in Lance’s life, the only thing that he’s got to rely on, to keep him going. And he loves him, he loves him more than anything else, more than any of his other self destructive urges, more than his need to run away, and chase after something impossible. He loves Shiro, and Shiro loves him.

He doesn’t deserve him, he doesn’t deserve even a tiny fucked up little piece of him, and yet somehow, he has all of him. All of his beautiful pieces and all of his less beautiful ones. All of them, they’re his. And all of Lance belongs to him too. There’s less beautiful pieces, and a lot more fucked up ones, but they’re his and they’re Shiro’s and that’s enough. Somehow, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> man this was something i really had to get out i had something really specific in mind for it and i actually... think i managed to get it right
> 
> comments are greatly appreciated <3
> 
> [you can check me out on twitter here](https://twitter.com/thatsforme2know)


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